Where do you draw the line between very good and great?

[tlazzol]

My opinion is biased by the way superlatives are used so much these days.  I would call Nicklaus, Woods and Hagen the "greatest" of major winners.  Only ones to have reached double digits.  5-9 is great.  1-4 very good.  I say nice shot or good shot to my friends quite often, great shot rarely.

[Groucho Valentine]

3 hours ago, skydog said:

Maybe you're being sarcastic and I'm not picking up on it, but I've literally never heard anyone say this.

 

Of course it is, so are most topics discussed on forums like this. It's not much fun discussing a topic that has an objective right/wrong answer.

 

2 hours ago, Pretzel said:

This is the first time I've ever heard it this way. The only way I've ever heard a comparison like that is that the pros of yesteryear played against much weaker fields since golf wasn't as large of a sport at the time, meaning there were fewer people interested and dedicated enough to raise the level of competition. When Tiger came onto the scene he became a golf superstar that helped spawn a generation of young players that we see competing today. I don't have data myself, but I'd be willing to wager that fields were stronger as a whole in the early 2000's than they were in the 60's and 70's, since not everybody on tour in the 60's and 70's even used golf as their full-time job.

I would guess that, too. Just something I've heard over the years on the webz and in 19th holes. Typically by somebody that unconditionally hated Tiger to begin with. Palmer had to deal with Hogan, Snead, etc. Nicklaus, Trevino Watson, etc. The argument was that Tiger had none of these types of foes at his peak, and that in turn discredits his much of his career. I dont agree with the point at all and there is no way to quantify it, but i understand it. 

[rehmwa]

OK - 14 or more....   ; )

I chuckle at the thread with people saying things like "only 2".....only 2 MAJORS - crazy stuff -

Define your personal idea of what "great" means and then discuss it vs someone else's definition of "great".  I'd probably go along with the major win count criteria - plus some partial weighting with non-major lifetime wins and longevity in the pro ranks......It would require math, but not calculus.

[RandallT]

59 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

It would require math, but not calculus.

We need the OWGR site to also have a point system for all golf events ever played in the history of professional golf that incorporates strength of field, etc!

Rather than have a scrolling weighted window of a couple seasons for the current world ranking, they just tally it up with no weighting for how old it is. 

Voila. A math problem now. (Imagine the arguments over that formula!)

[rehmwa]

4 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Voila.

I had a friend once write this as "Wah Lah".  When I showed him it was "Voila" he thought I was making it up........Still does to this day.

[iacas]

On 2/12/2017 at 11:05 PM, 1badbadger said:

You think 28 is a lot?

When talking about a "great"? Yes. With the context being PGA Tour players… yeah.

On 2/12/2017 at 11:05 PM, 1badbadger said:

This surprises me.  I've known The Masters is considered to have the weakest field of the 4 majors, but the PGA has the strongest?  Most people tend to look at the PGA as the least desirable major.  This was a poll that I ran across from a number of years ago on a non-golf forum:

It's the strongest field by far.

[Pretzel]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

It's the strongest field by far.

 

I'm curious, what makes it the strongest field? I would've thought the more popular of the two open championships (the U.S., most likely) would have the strongest field since it would have the largest pool of players to draw from.

[iacas]

24 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

I'm curious, what makes it the strongest field? I would've thought the more popular of the two open championships (the U.S., most likely) would have the strongest field since it would have the largest pool of players to draw from.

They pull from larger diluted fields.

The PGA has the highest number of highly ranked golfers.

[Pretzel]

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

They pull from larger diluted fields.

The PGA has the highest number of highly ranked golfers.

 

Fair enough, I suppose the qualification process for either open would tend to filter out some of the pros who may have had an off day during qualifying while letting in someone who got lucky.